In vain the grey-haired butler, Philip, pressed him to partake of breakfast, and cautioned him against a weary way and an empty stomach. He pecked like a sick bird at the substantial venison pasty, and sipped at the warm tankard with a word the while now to the old domestic, and now to young Arthur, who had come in, and sat opposite him, in that vacant and natural sorrow which belongs to the broken moments of such a parting.
At last Cuthbert descended the hall steps, which were full of the warm-hearted servants; and, pressing the hand of his affectionate pupil, mounted his horse and rode away.
The day was cold and wet: nothing could be more gloomy or comfortless than his long and lonely ride. He met only one train of pack-horses, and a few single travellers on horseback, throughout the day. He baited his animal at a wayside alehouse, where he found nobody but a cross old woman and a deaf hostler; and it was not till the dusk of evening that he reached the town of Aylesbury, where he proposed sleeping.
Within five miles of this place he was overtaken by a gentleman on horseback, who fell into conversation with him; and who, being like himself on a journey to town, offered to join company with him that night at the inn.
Although it would have been far more agreeable to Cuthbert to have proceeded alone, yet the appearance of the stranger was so prepossessing, and his manners were so frank and courteous, that it was not possible to shake off his company without rudeness. Moreover, his speech had already shown him to be a man of gentle breeding, and that Cambridge had once reckoned him among her students,—so they rode forward together.
At the entrance of the town, hard by one of the first houses in the street, sat a cobbler working and singing in his hutch. The companion of Cuthbert here pulled his bridle; and, turning his beast’s nose almost into it, called out, in a loud jolly tone, “Ho, Crispin! canst tell me the way to the church?”
“No,” said the cobbler, throwing up an indifferent glance, and then stooping again over his last.
“Art deaf, or hast lost thy wits, old surly?” said the traveller: “you know what a church is, don’t you?”
“I know what it is not,” replied the old cobbler bluntly, without looking off his work.
“What is it not, sirrah?”